The titles and quaint constitutional privileges of Britain's grandest families have always held a special fascination for the lesser classes, not least for the considerable wealth contained therein.

Turns out some of these real-life Downton Abbey types are finding it increasingly hard to make rent and pay the bills.

A full 60% of the United Kingdom's historic houses, in fact, are now open to the public in some capacity for tours, conferences, events and the like, a survey by Britain's Historic Houses Association reveals. Nearly a quarter of these stately piles will permit you — for only a modest fee, no doubt — to tie the proverbial knot on location.

Some, such as the sprawling, 12,000-acre Goodwood Estate located about 60 miles south of London, near Chichester, West Sussex, are even embracing the creed of capitalism with an entrepreneur's zeal.

"The whole thing for us is we have to make money. We have to survive," says the Earl of March, otherwise known as Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, the 58-year-old heir apparent of the 10th Duke of Richmond.

"Our challenge is that the overheads are so big, just the annual cost of keeping the grass cut is huge," he says.

Lord March's family — Earls are "informally" referred to as Lords — has presided over Goodwood for more than 300 years. And the place itself is nothing if not a paean to the sumptuous money-making possibilities of English parkland.

The Earl of March, left, and guest at the Good Revival festival on Sept. 14, 2013(Photo: K. Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

At Goodwood, you can golf, fly, join the Kennels sporting club, stay in the hotel, purchase a hamper full of Goodwood-made organic produce, take in some midweek horse racing, challenge your classic race car handling skills on the track, get married in a Regency-era house, stay focused with the personal training, look at the art, buy the postcard, have it framed and more.

Each summer, Goodwood hosts upward of 300,000 fee-paying guests for two notable events: The Festival of Speed, described as "the largest motoring garden party in the world" and the Goodwood Revival, a "historic motor race meeting" that is staged entirely in a "nostalgic time capsule" spanning the late 1940s to the mid-1960s.

The annual Glorious Goodwood is considered to be a highlight of the British flat horse race calendar.

When USA TODAY stopped by the Revival for the day (it takes place over three days) earlier this month, period costumes and props vied for attention with revered, vintage racing cars in a setting that has accurately been described as NASCAR meets Downton Abbey.

"Everyone gets into the spirit and it brings a lot of people out," said Mark Tinworth, who was visiting the event from a small village near Winchester, where he runs a traditional candy store. Tinworth said he approved of the various activities Lord March was involved with to keep Goodwood going. "It's better than letting it fall into disrepair," he said.

In the last four years, according to the HHA data, privately owned historic houses, castles and gardens in Britain have been facing a backlog of urgent repairs that has now risen to more than $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, since 2009, the amount owners have been able to spend on these repairs has fallen 27%.

Still, it has been suggested that Lord March does not quite fit the mold of the British aristocrat, and that this may go some way toward explaining his head for business, as well as his success in maneuvering Goodwood into the black, profit wise, which Lord March says Goodwood has achieved.

Writing in the September issue of Vanity Fair magazine, British critic A.A. Gill said, "What is left of the old aristocracy is sorry, lost, and irredeemably stupid. Refugees in their own houses, living in corners, cutting coupons, eating out of cans, complaining to the postman about the state of modernity and the hell of modernity. But if you had to save one, just for breeding purposes, as an ideal specimen, it would have to be (Lord March)."

Alex Williamson, Goodwood's chief executive since the end of last year, says that Lord March combines a real sense of responsibility to the estate's legacy with a desire to be creative with its capacity to behave as a kind of heritage-inspired conglomerate with multiple income streams.

"Each landowner across the country has ultimately taken a different view about how best to keep their estates running, " Williamson says. "Those that continue to exist today, all of them have found their own way of making ends meet."

Williamson says that in the 1930s there were thousands of estates in the United Kingdom. Today, the HHA represents 1,500.

"The traditional businesses that you would find on British estates — forestry, farming — all those are pretty difficult," Lord March says, adding that the most successful estates are those that have extensive property portfolios. His own family sold off the majority of their holdings a long time ago.

"You have a choice: Do you make money in a way that feels sympathetic to the place or do you do anything?" he says.

BlackRock, Cartier, Land Rover, Coutts and the many other varied and upmarket, princely sponsors backing the Goodwood brand would seem to give tacit approval to the idea that Lord March is making the correct choices.

Different models of monetizing the family seat abound.

Former F1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart drives the 1954 Mercedes W196 as he takes part in the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 14, 2013.(Photo: Andrew Hone, Getty)

At Longleat, a stately home built in 1580 in the country of Wiltshire where the grounds were designed by the noted English landscape architect Capability Brown, you can go "on safari" in what Longleat's website says is "widely regarded as one of the best examples of high Elizabethan architecture in Britain."

By all accounts, Longleat's Safari and Adventure Park, opened in 1966 and reportedly the first outside Africa, is a tasteful way to see zebras, rhinos and wild wolves.

Better yet: "Get up-close with Humboldt penguins as they swim underwater and right beneath your feet in the amazing subterranean cave on Penguin island!"